Auto Responders!

Belnahua

As most of us who use email at work should do, we put an Out Of Office autoresponder on the email account.

So why do firms that issue newsletters, either have a non-valid email address, or an auto responder at their end in the reply to of these newsletters?

So when you return you have all the newsletter replies, that have either failed or generated their own auto response form from your autoresponder.

How hard is it to set up a valid email address that just goes nowhere? So your auto responder doesn't generate more return email than it has to?

CHR15

I can answer one part.

they wont have a return address as it would involve checking it each day and deleting the HUNDREDS of emails saying "Stop Sending me this !!!! you !!!!!!!s!!"

As for the rest of your post, I have no idea what you mean... far too many autoresponders/transponders I can't make head nor tail of it

Paul_Herring

Belnahua wrote: »

As most of us who use email at work should do, we put an Out Of Office autoresponder on the email account.

Most of us don't. Most of us redirect mail to a collegue for the duration. This results in less OOO messages to (for example) regular mailing lists, and timely reply to 'genuine' mail requests, instead of the sender being inconvenienced into having to senda second email.

So when you return you have all the newsletter replies, that have either failed or generated their own auto response form from your autoresponder.

If you absolutely must have an OOO, is it that difficult to either
a) turn your mailing list preferences to 'no-mail'
b) if you must set up an OOO, set it up so that it doesn't respond to mailing lists
c) set up a rule to autodelete any returns?

So why do firms that issue newsletters, either have a non-valid email address, or an auto responder at their end in the reply to of these newsletters?

Probably to deal with misconfigured OOO when they aren't actually expecting a reply to their newsletters.

The rest of us on mailing lists, however, have no such option.

irrelevant

Out-of-office Auto responders are a pain in the neck. I can usually guarantee to get at least one when I write to certain email based lists I'm on.

I also get loads every time some spammer sends out mail using my email as the 'from' address

But to answer the OP, they should be set up only to ever reply back to a given address once, so avoiding loops. "Error" messages should also come from a null email address, which is not to be responsed to ever. Of course, some companies set the things up on Microsoft software, so all bets are off..

fitshase

We don't use the Out of Office notification at work as it can respond to spam messages and confirm that the e-mail address is valid. We are then inundated with spam to the domain name causing our IT department all sorts of problems dealing with it.

It is better just to forward e-mails to a colleague to deal with. Alternatively, our work e-mail system allows me to grant a colleague "reader" access to my mailbox. They can respond to e-mails from my inbox but it is sent from their account (to avoid the possibility of them sending e-mails from my account with my name on them in my absence).

They can't delete any mails so all e-mails are still in my inbox when I return to work.

Conor_3

Belnahua wrote: »

As most of us who use email at work should do, we put an Out Of Office autoresponder on the email account.

I wish you wouldn't. Apart from the fact it's completely pointless, such messages do nothing other than clog up the internet by generating needless traffic.